U.S. Libraries, Piracy and what is sharing.

[MetalMusicAddict]

*RULES*
This is not to become a stupid, flaming, crapfest of a discussion Stick to the topic. Ill get it locked if it goes that way. ;)


Co-workers and I got into a conversation today about the usual piracy issue. The library got thrown into the mix.
You can go to the library and you havnt paid for the content but you can enjoy it for free. About the same thing as downloading a movie or music via say... bittorrent.

So whats the fundamental difference in this day and age between downloading and enjoying music/movies or getting them from the library? You still enjoy the content.

The MPAA goes after people who download cams of new releases and DVD movies. A movie ticket gets you the right to see a movie. In the end people have only denied movie companies that ticket sale.

Man I wish I coulda recorded the conversation. I know I missed details in this post but they will come to me later. ;)

I would also like to say that this should be taken in the current climate of things. I do realize that libraries surve a purpose but I think they are less nessessary than they were 5 years ago.

[dave9191]

Well libaries are the same as video rental stores, but the goverment pays for them / rather the tax payer does. Well at least thats one way of looking at them. But if you download a movie / mp3 you are getting your own copy of it and not paying any royalties to the auther. Whereas in the case of the book the royalties are paid when the book is bought.

Plus you can only enjoy the book for so long before you have to give it back, you arent giving back the movie / mp3 back. Nor has it been paid for in any way, effectivly being stolen.

Dave

[poptones]

MMA, do you really not get the difference?

If you go to the libray and check out a DVD, you're the only one watching it. You might be able to copy it at home but this is an accident of convenience, not a right. If you check out a book, you also have a monopoly on that content for the time you keep it - no one else can read the book while oyu are reading it unless they are looking over your shoulder or - again - unless you or someone else has violated the copyright agreement by copying it.

If you go to the movies, you are paying for the experience. When you leave you don't take the movie home with you in a form that can be shared - unless, again, you have violated copyright by camming it.

Libraries are as necessary now as they ever were. But if meaningful DRM can be popularized their form may change greatly. If Addison Wesley can "give" you an electronic copy of any book they sell for a period of, say, 24 hours and not have to worry greatly that you can keep it and share it in perpetuity they will be more likely to do so. After all, this is pretty much how bookstores sell book in the first place: give you a comfortable place where you can linger and browse the content before deciding on a purchase.

Go to homepower.com or circuitcellar.com and look at their archival cds and dvds. They will be able to use DRM just like everyone else. How much less do you think they might charge for their archives if they can practically limit access to it for, say, a week? Knowledge becomes more accessible to a greater number of people while preserving the ability of the authors to profit from their publications.

[gil-galad]

The main difference is that libraries are a cherished tradition while piracy has a negative social stigma.

[MetalMusicAddict]

MMA, do you really not get the difference?
I do get the difference but in the conversation we had it became apperent that the argument could be made you get to enjoy the content for free either way. A slick lawyer could word it better.

Believe me Im 3 decades old . I do know the realities. I was just intruiged with the basic thought. Enjoying the content without paying.

As for the necessity of libraries, thats for another time. ;)

With the current piracy issues should libraries still provide CDs and DVDs?

[poptones]

I do get the difference but in the conversation we had it became apperent that the argument could be made you get to enjoy the content for free either way.

copyright is not about preventing people from "enjoying the content." It's about protecting the right of the author to decide for herself who gets to copy - and, thus, distribute - her work. Copyright might seem "unfair" when it means you have to pay 20 bucks for a piece of plastic from a Billion dollar studio, but it's the same tool that protects us all from having that same Billion dollar studio employ it massive distribution and publicity infrastructure against us. I don't have the right to copy their work and sell it, and they don't have the right to mine, either.


A slick lawyer could word it better.

A slick lawyer wouldn't try, at least so far as equating use with distribution - which is what you did here. Google "lessig vs valente" and read the debate transcripts.

[MetalMusicAddict]

When remembering more of the conversation at work it did boil down more to use.

When buying a DVD, yes, you pay for the right to keep it. That sale goes to many things. Advertising, production costs and so on. Also in there is the right to view the content. So in this age how does a library give that content for free? The enjoyment of it.

And ok. Ill go there. :)
The necessity of libraries. In thinking about it it seems that the service they provide is becomming obsolete. With the internet getting reference info is easy. There are currently 40 million people with broadband access in the states. Still more with dial-up.

I went to the library when I was younger like most people. But now its a place where you can get DVDs and CDs to copy or get online. I know many (young) people who do this. (sorry guys)


Im playing devils advocate in here. I really feel a little different about things. Im just trying to exercise some thoughts. ;)

[poptones]

I don't have broadband. Neither do a few hundred Million others - and thanks to geography I'm not likely to have broadband for quite some time... just like a few hundred Million others.


I do go to the library pretty regularly. I go there with my laptop and I download stuff that is impractical from my home - like last time, when I downloaded His Girl Friday from the internet archive. And next time I go I'll have a hard drive full of old Shirley Temple movies that I will likewise be uploading to the internet archive. None of this is infringement of copyright - these are all works that have moved into the public domain.

So how is the library "obsolete?" It's a long way from that, and will be for decades more. Not everything gets put online, nor is it ever likely to do so. And paper, vinyl and acetate, despite the hassles and limited lifetime, are still not nearly as fragile as any digital storage methods we have at present. The internet archive may just be "online" to most people but it takes a massive infrastructure to support those terabytes of data. Every place "online" is, in reality, a physical place. No matter how you look at it, those "libraries" will be around so long as we as a species value knowledge.

When you buy a DVD you are buying a service. It's no different than a book. When you bring home a book do you expect to have the "right" to "make backups" so if you drop it in the toilet you don't have to worry about flushing it?

Copyright isn't perfect but nothing is. It's served us well for centuries and can continue to do so for centuries more. In fact, it's more important to us all now than it ever was; before the barriers to publication pretty much ensured creative people had to ally themselves with publishers. Now we can all be publishers. If it weren't for the protection of copyright there would be nothing stopping an MCA or a Polydor or a Virgin from simply taking these works (http://ccmixter.org/file/djlang59/15), pressing a few thousand copies, and hyping them on late night TV. Copyright is what ensures the artist decides who gets to do that, and under what terms.

[MetalMusicAddict]

I thought someone would focus on only "broadband". I also mention dial-up. Which gets you to the same internet.

I didnt want to assume but your not from the states poptones are you? If you arent its the reason Ive made it a point to mention "the states".

You do realize this is just an exercise for me right? :) Its hard to get a gauge for you tone without smiles. ;)

Im not gettin into copyright but Im along the same lines as you. (I think) :)

Also http://ccmixter.org/ is a great site.

[poptones]

I also mention dial-up. Which gets you to the same internet.

No, it doesn't. Not at all. Not even a little. Every minute I spend at the library is more than an hour in my home. Downloading His Girl Friday from my home would take, quite literally, a week. And uploading the Shirley Temple reels I have compressed into good quality mpeg4 would also take a week. During this time my internet connection would be so monopolized as to be completely useless for anything else.

It is not, by any stretch of imagination, "the same internet." I used to live in Hollywood and was one of the first on my block to get DSL when it became available. It was so convenient I disconnected the cable and turned off the satellite dish. When I wanted music videos I queued up a few streams; when I wanted to listen to "radio" I tuned into a stream; when I was about to leave for some address I had never been before I spent two minutes locating and printing out a yahoo map. Even that mundane process, from my home now, is more like a twenty minute process.

When my father was a teen he used to walk the same roads we sometimes drive now. Except when he was a child a ten minute trip into town was a day's walk. It's the same road... but it's not the same at all.

I am in the US. I live in the rural south. My town has a population of about 200 people and is more than ten miles from even a modest community of stores and other things people think of as a "town." And that town, in spite of having DSL service within town itself, still doesn't even have a DSL service in the library. it's an hour's drive for me to get to a place where I can connect via broadband. In this regard, I am exactly where my father was nearly 70 years ago.

[dave9191]

When buying a DVD, yes, you pay for the right to keep it. That sale goes to many things. Advertising, production costs and so on. Also in there is the right to view the content. So in this age how does a library give that content for free? The enjoyment of it.


The main differece is that book has been paid for and only one person can enjoy it at any one time. And in the payment made for the book, the auther has been paid for the work. Same with tapes and dvd and what have you. When you have the real item infront of you, it auther has been paid. Stealing of the internet is just that, stealing. You are not giving credit where it belongs, and you arent paying the people who took the time to make it.

And you dont enjoy the library for free, you pay for it in tax.

Dave

[MetalMusicAddict]

Sorry poptones Im gonne flat-out disagree on this one. It is the same internet. Content is the same. If you wanna talk the same experience thats different. ;)

[Knome_fan]

First off, no it's not stealing it's copyright infrigement. To different things.

Second, libraries are not becoming irrelevant. They might be in some distant future, but right now and in the forseeable there's just to much content that isn't online to make them become irrelevant.

Third, libraries and copyright infrigement are indeed a hot issue. For example, what about being able to make copies? Without that libraries would be a lot less usefull.

And here is where the problem starts. For example, here in Germany university libraries never have enough money which leads to them almost inevitably not having some of the journals you need. Now some time ago libraries had a brilliant idea and set up a service that let you order copies of the articles not available at your library. Needless to say the libraries paid for the journals and paid for the right to copy, however needless to say that this wasn't enough and so this great service has now been shut down, which sucks.

Another example, the German national library is supposed to archieve about everything created in Germany. Now in order to archieve some digital content they would need to circumvent copy protection technology. The problem is that the laws in Germany were recently chaged so that circumventing copy protection or even describing how to circumvent it became illegal. Now isn't that a fun situation?

[poptones]

Equating copyright infringement with theft doesn't buy you much creedence at all. Copyright is not a natural law, it's simply a social construct. Copyright wasn't even in the plan until some amount of convincing of certain founders of our constitution, and one of the prime dissenters in the matter also happened to dedicate a good part of his life to constructing a very substantial private library.

Public libraries are paid for with public money. But not all lending libraries are public.

Copyright was never intended to protect commerce, and equating it with theft is just plain wrong. If copyright (or patent) were a natural right then there would be no ethical basis for ending the term. No works would ever become public domain because that would be tantamount to the government "stealing" private property.

You're still confusing attribution with commerce. They are not at all related.


Sorry poptones Im gonne flat-out disagree on this one. It is the same internet. Content is the same. If you wanna talk the same experience thats different.

You can disagree all you like, but you'll still be wrong because it is NOT "the same internet" for a dialup user. There is a tremendous amount of content out there that is flat out unavailable to anyone not having at least a sustainable 250kbps or more of connectivity. It's not a "different experience" if you don't have that connectivity, it's no experience at all.

[NoTiG]

the thing is.... the music industry "wishfully assumes" that if you download, or upload a copyrighted file owned by them for free.... that this is a loss. That is completely false, because if it had not been free, then the transaction would not have happened. For instance.... say i had a sudden urge to listen to Led zeppelin stairway to heaven... so I dl the song. Now if i had to pay for it.. i never would have downloaded it in the firstplace. Therefore the net effect to the music industry is 0. They simply cant prove what the damages are to them, and logic dictates that its always less than what they wishfully assume.

[super]

my $0.02

i think i agree with poptones' last post. copyright infringement is definitely different from theft. Even calling it intellectual theft is inaccurate because who is to same i wouldn't have come up with the same idea (or song, or program) eventually?

Therefore i consider piracy laws a bit heavyhanded. Does photocopying a text from the library amount to theft? What if these copies were distributed? If it is illegal then a lot of high-school and university teachers should be arrested.

Anyways i let my self be guided by my own moral laws. (this is a bit easier where i live as our piracy laws are not as rigid) For example, i won't download music by struggling artist, i will actually buy their music. (Unless they are rappers that talk about robbing and hustling people, in that case i feel a moral obligation to teach them a lesson ;-) )

As to libraries, they are most definitely still useful. There are a ot of things that i read in a library for free that are not free on the internet.

[dave9191]

Therefore i consider piracy laws a bit heavyhanded. Does photocopying a text from the library amount to theft? What if these copies were distributed? If it is illegal then a lot of high-school and university teachers should be arrested.

It is illegal to distrabute photocopied materials when it violates the copyright laws. So copying someones work and calling it your own is illegal. Copying it and saying where it came from is not. But then you are only copying an extract, not the whole thing.



As for saying if I had to pay for it, I wouldnt get it might apply for a lot of the downloads, but its pretty clear that sales have been effected since people have been downloading music. (even thos that my stance on the matter)

Dave

[Knome_fan]

It is illegal to distrabute photocopied materials when it violates the copyright laws. So copying someones work and calling it your own is illegal.
There is no logical connection between the two sentences.



Copying it and saying where it came from is not.

So all P2P is essentially legal? Wow.



But then you are only copying an extract, not the whole thing.

No, I know enough other examples and I'm sure you'll see the same thing in the states.



As for saying if I had to pay for it, I wouldnt get it might apply for a lot of the downloads, but its pretty clear that sales have been effected since people have been downloading music. (even thos that my stance on the matter)

Dave
No, it isn't clear at all. On the contrary there are independent studies suggesting that P2P might actually be beneficial for record sales. Mind you, I'm not saying it doesn't have a negative effect, I'd just like to point out that I'm not aware of any independent study showing that it does.

[poptones]

it doesn't matter if p2p helps or hurts sales... that's the point. What if I don't care about sales? What if I just don't want to be affiliated with some publisher? What if I do not want the work to be distributed any more at all?

There have been porn stars who have later decided they did not want to be porn stars any more and they, or their partners, bought up the rights to every feature in which they appeared. In this manner they did their best to put the past behind them, and I cannot believe anyone would be so cold as to argue they do not have the right to attempt a new start in life. With the new "everyone is a publisher" model we are living with now this is sure to happen more frequently as people mature and some decide they really are not so proud of the video work they did in their wild teens and early twenties.

Just one example, but there are countless scenarios for the creator of a work not wanting any more copies of that work to be published. What if I create a popular work but I simply want to limit the number of copies in circulation so as to give them more value? As creator of the work that is my right - and this is exactly what Disney does. No matter your opinion of them, as creators of a work it is their right under copyright.

It doesn't matter whether it is for "personal use" or not - it is not your "right" to reproduce, against the copyright owner's wishes, an entire work simply because you want a copy and are too cheap or even economically unable to pay the current market value for the work. This is what public libraries are for.

[Knome_fan]

it doesn't matter if p2p helps or hurts sales... that's the point.

No, it isn't really, as alleged economic loss is the main if not only argument for anti-p2p measures and heavier copyright laws.



What if I just don't want to be affiliated with some publisher?

Yes, what if you don't?



What if I do not want the work to be distributed any more at all?

Then you can only hope and pray that you still own the rights to stop the distribution, which isn't the case in 99.9999999999% of all cases.



What if I create a popular work but I simply want to limit the number of copies in circulation so as to give them more value? As creator of the work that is my right - and this is exactly what Disney does.

Huh? Is Disney pulling Bambi, or what are you trying to tell us?



It doesn't matter whether it is for "personal use" or not - it is not your "right" to reproduce, against the copyright owner's wishes, an entire work simply because you want a copy and are too cheap or even economically unable to pay the current market value for the work.

I wasn't aware that anyone was disputing this. You are fighting against a strawman.



This is what public libraries are for.
Not really.

[dave9191]

So all P2P is essentially legal? Wow.

Errr.. I was refering to books, libaries and quoting refrences.... How you come to the conclutions that all of p2p is legal is beyond me... If you quote part of a song or play part of a movie as part of your own work and say where the material came from, you wouldnt see a law suit against you. On p2p you are distrabuting a whole song ro movie.

Dave

[poptones]

P2p is not illegal. Sharing content in an anauthorized manner is illegal. Many content creators welcome p2p.

[dave9191]

Well p2p as a technology is in a way a saviour for the net taking the load of servers and distrabuting it. Its just being misused a little :)

But what p2p is mostly associated with is people copying materials that they shouldnt be.

Dave

[Wolki]

If you quote part of a song or play part of a movie as part of your own work and say where the material came from, you wouldnt see a law suit against you.

Actually, you will. Ther have been many law suits about sampling. Some famous ones are Gilbert O'Sullivan vs Biz Markie or The Rolling Stones vs The Verve.

Even if you say where it came from, you have to license the sample.

[MetalMusicAddict]

This thread is going off topic. I knew it would. I was trying to exercise a thought about "use". Everything in the above couple of posts is interesting but honestly its been done to death countless times in this and every other fourm. There are never any winners and there shouldnt be. Its opinion.

I was just trying to have a semi-serious chat about libraries, use of their content and how it plays into piracy.

$hit. Im gonna go smoke some trees. Lets see if we can keep it calm. :)

[poptones]

You keep saying this but you are doing a very poor job of explaining what you mean by "use and how it plays into piracy." It's been pointed out like a bazillion times, copyright has nothing to do with use. Never was. It's not intended to limit use, it's intended to limit publication to those which the creator wants.

Is your point something about "fair use?" Most people seem to think "fair use" means "I can copy anything I bought" and that's just not so. Why is it not so? Because copying is duplication - publishing.

Copyright has specific rights granted to legitimate archivists; the SCOTUS has made the point several times, however, that a home user is not considered a "legitimate archivist" and those exemptions outlined under the "fair use" portion of Title 17 do not necessarily apply in such a scenario, especially when the publisher has made a reasonable effort to address a marketplace.

Libraries, however, do not "copy" their content unless it is for archival purposes. If I check out a copy of Goats Head Soup from my local library it's not some CD-R they burned from napster downloads. Libraries are not publishers, they are archivists. What you do with the content when it is under your control is your responsibility. But I can tell you this: some years ago there was a person scanning artwork and posting it to usenet who openly admitted in the newsgroup how he was getting access to the books from which he was posting these photographs, And when the publisher representing an artist whose works were infringed (David Hamilton, I believe) located the "defendant" he was blacklisted by the local libraries - no more checkout priviledges.

Librarians tend to be a pretty activist group. You don't want to **** off librarians.

Does THAT adress your point? If not then I'm lost. Perhaps it's those burning trees that are clouding your point.. sure hard to see it from here.